You would NOT believe what happened to me when I got home today…!!(Not Clickbait)

Hello, Dear Reader. I hate to be so direct, but I must immediately inform you that you have been tricked. The title of this article was strategically designed to play on your natural human curiosity, the very thing that drives education, philosophy, and perhaps even the force of civilization as we know it.

In other words, it was clickbait.

In case you’re unwilling to accept this truth, I will tell you exactly what transpired after I arrived at my apartment this evening.

When I got home today, I unlaced my shoes and set them on the rack beside the door. I noticed that the floor by the entrance was littered with seeds the trees on my campus have been dumping on the sidewalks in the spirit of fall. I swept the floor. Then I remembered that I was hungry. After staring into my fridge, and then opening and closing a few random cabinets in the kitchen, I settled on eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I grabbed a plate and two butter knives and made one. Next, I sat down at the dining table and scrolled through Facebook while I ate. The title of this article might have been true if I saw a lot of what my friends had posted, and few ads. Instead, I saw a lot of ads and practically nothing that my friends posted. I finished my sandwich. I was still hungry, so I nibbled on a tangerine-flavored Popsicle. Then I thought about the homework I needed to finish and decided to write a blog post.

If anything, you might not believe that my life is so incredibly lame. But I’m willing to bet that’s not why you clicked on this article. I’m willing to bet that you wanted to hear a story. I’m betting you wanted it to be thrilling; I’m betting you were looking to gasp. Maybe you wanted it to raise your heart rate a little. You might have thought it would make you laugh or make you angry. Most likely you clicked on this article because you crave the feeling of awe; you want to be at a loss for words, and you’re not really sure why.

I’m not a gambling kind of person, but my betting is not over. I bet you clicked on this even though a small part of you knew it would result in the disappointment you’re currently experiencing. I’m betting this isn’t the first time you’ve done this. Actually, I’m willing to bet that you clicked this article against the better part of your judgement. I am willing to bet, Dear Reader, that you clicked on this and you knew you were certainly going to believe what happened to me, even if you naively thought you were going to get that far. Did you, perhaps, think that this webpage would be so full of ads that it would run really slowly? Did you guess that you would only see the first few sentences of the misleading article followed by a “Read More” link, with even more clickbait articles and advertisements underneath it leading to more useless links?

I would like to bet that you did.

Oh, and I have no intention of allowing your expectations to go unfulfilled. How terribly unfortunate would that be? Here’s a few ads to make you feel better.

Have fun nursing your disappointment, Dear Reader. I hope your losses today don’t trouble you financially. And just when you resolve to quit clicking on these links, to stop your closeted little gambling problem, well, I’ll bet you’ll do it again.